Welcome to The Cave of Dragonflies forums, where the smallest bugs live alongside the strongest dragons.

Guests are not able to post messages or even read certain areas of the forums. Now, that's boring, don't you think? Registration, on the other hand, is simple, completely free of charge, and does not require you to give out any personal information at all. As soon as you register, you can take part in some of the happy fun things at the forums such as posting messages, voting in polls, sending private messages to people and being told that this is where we drink tea and eat cod.

Of course I'm not forcing you to do anything if you don't want to, but seriously, what have you got to lose? Five seconds of your life?

Planning on doing a Bertholdt cosplay pretty soon, because apparently I look a lot like him! I'll have to hit a convention at some point before I leave, as the chances of me going to one after I move are pretty slim.

I have no clue what I want to cosplay for this year's Comic Con (it's in about a month), and I need cheap cosplay ideas (think somewhere in the range of $20-$30). Any suggestions?

Sadly, cheap and cosplay generally don't fit together in the same sentence ^q^

Do you have access to a sewing machine and do you know how to use it? Do you have access to a cardboard dump? Do you have a hot-glue gun? How good is your craftsmanship and how much time do you have to make your costume? Your answers to these questions will greatly determine what kind of costumes you can make cheaply.

With that said, what sorts of things are you interested in cosplaying? Pokemon gajinkas are generally the way to go if you want a cheap cosplay, since you can just modify the clothes you have on-hand. On the other hand, if you want to cosplay something with a set character design, the cost can range from "I conveniently found 90% of the clothes I need in a thrift store/trash can, go me!" to "GOOD BYE MY ENTIRE LIFE SAVINGS".

I was thinking maybe Red or some other Trainer from the games. I have a Poke Ball, some plushes, and a few bottles (standing in as Potions and such). All I'm missing are clothes plus the backpack.

I can easily get my hands on the hot glue and the cardboard, and I have about a month to do the actual cosplay.

We can do a bit of a cost breakdown, with price estimates assuming you're buying from Amazon. Let's say that you're doing the old simple version of Red.

Hat - $5

Plain red t-shirt to butcher - $7

White dress shirt to butcher - $15

Fingerless gloves - $5

Black t-shirt - $7

Jeans, belt, sneakers - use the ones in your closet already

Thread - $5

That's $44 already, not even counting the backpack. Yikes. (This is the reason the words 'cosplay' and 'cheap' don't go together...)

Of course, it can get cheaper if you're lucky. You can probably find a white dress shirt from your local thrift store for $5. You might already own a plain black t-shirt, and your mom might have some white thread lying around, so you don't need to buy those. If you're confident in your ability to sew, you won't need to buy the white dress shirt and can instead make the sleeves and collar on your own using small bits of fabric.

If you don't have a sewing machine, you'll have a really bad time. Hand sewing takes actually forever -- unless you make large stiches, 1 month probably isn't going to be enough for you to sew your costume together (assuming, say, 1 hour of sewing per day).

With that said though, not all hope is lost if you don't have a sewing machine. You can use fabric glue ($5 or more; you might need multiple bottles) and glue your clothing pieces together instead of sewing. It's not going to be as strong as sewing, and the fabric might harden or change color around the glue area (you'll have to experiment; different fabrics react differently with different glues). But fabric glue can work pretty well if you use it right and give it time to dry.

Ooooh, Linoone knows stuff, imagine me just. Circling everything they wrote with a highlighter. (I didn't know you were a cosplayer, Linoone..?) Hopefully you can find everything you need at thrift stores; Red's design is simple enough that it shouldn't be too hard to find most of what you need for cheap.

I'd also like to add that for maximum cosplay enjoyment, don't bring too many props that you can't just easily stuff in your bag! You'll get tired of holding three plushies after about an hour or so, trust me on this.

Ho ho hoh. I wouldn't consider myself experienced though (I've only done ... 3 cosplays? None of them were that complicated though, as far as cosplay goes. I'm planning 1 more this year for Anime Expo, possibly 2 if I can scrap together some extra money...)

Ahhh yes Dragon brought up a good point! Make sure your costume is comfortable (enough) to wear! If you're really bad at handling heat, don't do a character with 5 layers of clothing and a thick winter jacket. If you're doing a character with a full-face mask, make sure you can see clearly enough to navigate, or be able to take it on and off easily. Don't wear high heels unless you're ok with walking around in high heels, so on and so forth...

Pokemon-trainer wise, I'd recommend just 1 plushie, which saves you enough spare backpack space/hands to drink water and hold merchandise.

this past nashicon in april (2nd year attending nashi) I was young link with my friend being dark link, and then the next day of nashi i was scout (friends were the other valve characters). at ichibancon, cosplays i did there include Ib and Chica the Chicken (the one on the left)

Scootaloo, your Chica cosplay is super cute! That's even taking into consideration all the murderous tendencies.

I actually cosplayed this year! \o/ I rounded up a few things, and I made a decent Sam Winchester cosplay minus the hair (recently got a hair cut). The jacket was a gift from my grandpa, the shirt from a friend, the jeans are mine and the shoes are my dad's. Please tell me if the link works!

I've only cosplayed twice. My first was for last year's Comic con, which was actually my first ever comic con :) I'd found a trenchcoat in a local charity shop, so I went as Castiel. My other cosplay was as Spock. I'm thinking of trying it again for this year's comic con, my friend might be going as Kirk, or I might try my Homestuck god-tier (I'll have to see if I can actually make the homestuck cosplay first, it'll probably take quite a bit of fabric...)